I read recently (How the West Won, by Rodney Stark) that the Vikings occupied Ukraine for 600 years and named the city of Kiev. Quite surprising to learn how expansive their influence was.
The Vikings were the “founders” of the country, bringing all of the various tribes under one rule. There is a statue in Kiev of the Vikings honoring them as the founders. I was surprised when I learned that.
That was back when there were the riots and fighting in Kiev for a change in government, and they would gather in the main square and I saw the statue. “Hey - those guys look like Vikings!” Which led me down the interweb rabbit hole.
Coins from Persia and India were found in Viking graves..............
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13th_Warrior
I think it was a really good adventure movie, but it was a bomb in the theaters. Don’t know why...................
The Vikings were the second wave, you should read about the Migration Period after the fall of Rome and tribes like the Vandals, Goths, Ostrogoths, Angels, Saxons, Lombards, and the Franks. It will blow your mind.
Actually they FOUNDED Ukraine and its derivative country of Russia! The Swedes went east and south as opposed to the Danes & Norse that went west and south. From the Baltic, the natural trading route was the Dnieper River which, with some portages, led to the Black Sea and the great city of Constantinople. By the 800s, the Varangians / Swedes had conquered Kiev which strides the confluence of the Dnieper and Desna river systems. Over time the polity from Kiev north to the Baltic was known as the "Land of the Rus" which may have come from the Finnish name for the Swedes.
While initially pagan, this area was strongly influenced by Byzantium Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, as can be seen even today as west Ukraine is Catholic while the east is Orthodox. The Kievan Rus basically was an entity from the late 800s to the Mongol invasion of the mid 1200s. Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis, raized Kiev in 1240, ending its independence for centuries.
I believe the Russians were originally from the Viking tribe of RUS. Hence the name.